When weighing future threats that would be a result of releasing terrorists in a negotiation against the immediate, confirmed danger that the hostages faced, the rabbis wrote that we are commanded to prioritize the release of those in immediate danger, even at high cost. 

It has been over a year since 101 hostages — men, women, children and babies — were taken to Gaza, and it is urgent to negotiate a deal that will bring them home and end this horrific war. This is a moral, Israeli, and Jewish imperative, and we are running out of time to do it.

Professor Rashid Khalidi spoke to a room full of Jews on the Upper West Sids of NY. Smol Emuni roganzied the event, Esther Sperber said a Dvar Torah and Adi Mahalel interviewed and moderated the event.

Professor Rashid Khalidi spoke to a room full of Jews on the Upper West Sids of NY. Smol Emuni roganzied the event, Esther Sperber said a Dvar Torah and Adi Mahalel interviewed and moderated the event.

David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor of History at UCLA and served as president of the New Israel Fund from 2018-2023. He also directs the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, and the UCLA Dialogue across Difference Initiative. He is the author or editor of many books in the field of Jewish history, including, with Nomi Stolzenberg, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton, 2022), which was awarded the 2022 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish studies.